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The Ruins of Minas Iaur and Bar-en-Uinendil
The Ruins of Minas Iaur and Bar-en-Uinendil were ancient remnants of the sunken city of Lond Daer. First Basement I. Storage Room. The only staircase up was in the northwest corner. It is no longer identifiable. The rubble is too high to allow sight or passage to the southern part of the room. 2. Rubble. Most ofthe ceiling has collapsed here, burying the remains of the staircase and the stored goods. No useful trace of them survives. 3. Drainage. Water from the depression on the surface seeps in through this corner of the storage room; by digging down, adventurers can effect a very narrow entrance through the collapsed ceiling. The air in the basement seems to be okay, but it is not. Relatively little air has seeped in with the water, and the oxygen content is low. After a while everyone will begin to feel lightheaded, and a bit later they will begin to take a penalty each round, cumulative, to all activities. If light is provided by torches, this process begins almost immediately, and the penalty is doubled. The torches will flicker out, by which point the explorers could be in deep trouble. 4. Central Corridor. All the doors have rotted to dust. 5. Storage. Another section of the storage room, blocked from the first by the fall of the ceiling. There are two amphora in the corner. Their wine evaporated long ago, but they would be worth 20-30 gp apiece to the right collector. 6. Armory. The ceiling is partially collapsed. The armory was looted millennia ago, but some lesser weapons were pinned behind the debris and not felt to be worth the effort of excavating. It is only Hard to note the glint of High Steel in the debris. A dagger may be recovered with little trouble, but roughly 2 tons of stone must be very carefully removed to get at the 6 spear heads, 4 axe heads, and the broadsword behind the rubble. If this is done by hand, it is likely that the workers will become infested with sand fleas. The fleas will cause a painful and very distracting rash on the morrow. 7. Side Passage. Served the servant quarters. 8. Servant Quarters. Now quite bare. Very diligent searching will reveal a small cache of 12 sp under a tile near the far corner of the center room. 9. Cold Storage Room. A few bones (cow and pig) remain scattered about the floor. 10. Shaft for Secret Elevator. An emergency exit into the doorway is Sheer Folly to detect. If the shaft is suspected (from the use of magic or from tapping on the walls), the difficulty goes down to Very Hard . The mechanical spear trap, now rusted and inoperable, on the opposite side of the doorway is only Hard to detect because of its rust; this may be the best clue. The magical trap on the entrance still works just fine. It is Hard to detect and quite deadly, as no one was intended to operate the elevator from this level. Anyone in the doorway takes a triple damage Lightening Bolt that repeats four rounds after it is set off. The bolt operates from a warding spell, so it cannot be manually disarmed without destroying the surface of the wall opposite the door. If the party lacks the means to dispel this magic, it may be best to try to break down the wall in the corridor. Another problem occurs when the elevator shaft is breached. The sub-basement has been the home of many generations of anaerobic nematodes (little worms) who give off oxygen as a waste product. The air from the two basements mixes in about three rounds, and the upper level will become hyper-oxygenated. There is a chance per round thereafter (non-cumulative) that a lightening bolt or any open flame will ignite the atmosphere; there is a chance that a random spark could do this. also make the air in the sub-basement unfit as described above (#3). If the explorers are already suffering from the effects of bad air, the hyper-oxygenation will immediately begin to reverse the process. However, once the characters have returned to normal they will begin to get silly and have impaired judgement. Sub-Basement The sub-basement of Minas Iaur became the deepest and dankest prison of Lond Daer, although it once was merely devoted to cisterns for the water supply of Vinyalonde'. Thus, no one bothered to search it when the salvaging after the Wrath of Osse was performed. None of the survivors knew that this was the secret location of Tar-Telemmaite's precious mithril room. There were no documents, and the King carried the secret to his grave. Maran the Silent was Telemmaites most trusted agent, and he was given the task of guiding the mithril room safely back to Numenor. During the storm that ravaged Lond Daer, he went down to the sub-basement to watch over his charge, and was trapped in the collapse of the tower along with three prisoners. The air and food held out for a dreadfully long time. Maran became quite insane, but remained committed to his mission, never quite realizing that he had died. Maran was a man of great determination; he has forced the spirits of the prisoners to assist him, and bent the mission of the guard constructs to his will. With his limited knowledge of the Essence, Maran has maintained the traps in the sub-basement, though he imagines that he has done so physically. His physical appearance is also subject to his will. Maran will probably greet any visitors as his long awaited rescuers, at least initially. Fluent Adunaic will be necessary to maintain this illusion; being a suspiciousfcllow, Maran will seek to test the deliverers'knowledge by leading them into or under the traps. An extremely glib, perceptive, and quick-witted person might just be able to talk Maran into leaving. If not, he and his unwilling servants will defend the inner prison with savage intensity. I. Elevator Shaft. A 40' drop from the basement level. 2. Low-ceilinged Central Chamber. The room is dotted with pit traps, each with a twelve foot fall onto three spear attacks; ceiling traps which drop an 80 lb. block of stone and spear traps for a spear attack. Four suits of fine Numenorean full plate stand astride the two doors out of the central chamber. They are actually constructs, designed as guards, and now obey Maran. They have suffered from corrosion, but each has a few salvageable bits. 3. Three Smaller Cisterns. They stink and teem with the foul-appearing, but harmless, nematodes. 4. Cell. The entry to the cell is barred by a portcullis, but the mechanism has not been maintained. It will take a cumulative Strength to force entry. 5. Common Cell. Used for those condemned to rot in the dungeons until they died. The two resident ghosts can pass easily through the portcullis. There are many mannish bones but no obvious treasure within. The very perceptive may notice that the left wall is covered with faint miter-encrusted lettering. It is only doggerel verse cursing a long forgotten governor, but it is written in Adunaic, Archaic Dunael, Old Eriadoran, and Beffraen. A copy would be worth a great deal to the right scholar for the Beffraen ideograms have never been translated into a civilized tongue. 6. Torture Chamber. The steel door will be unlocked unless Maran flees within. The lock is Extremely Hard to pick. Within are an elaborate set of mithril Instruments of Persuaison. The metal is worth 600 gp alone, but the intact set might fetch ten times that amount, at Carn Dum or Dol Guldur. Maran will focus his defense here, seeking to prevent entry to the inner prison at all costs. 7. Inner Prison. The inner prison door is identical to the one giving entry to the torture chamber (#6) and is kept locked. The ghost inside is, of course, free to pass. The iron frame of the cot within is largely intact. Hidden in the mattress is a sheaf of decaying papers that appear to be a set of treasure maps, secret orders, and alchemical preparations. The information on these papers is persuasive, but it is also entirely a product of Maran's imagination. By providing this plausible treasure, he seeks to provide a reasonable explanation for the fanatical defense of the inner prison. As a last resort, this may prevent the discovery of the mithril room. 8. Cistern. A cistern similar to those described above (#3) only larger and deeper. Buried here is the mithril room, submerged so as to be nearly undetectable by magical means. However, anyone willing to dive into the mucilaginous, maggoty muck is likely to discover quickly that something unusual is under the water. With mere prodding by poles, this is an Absurd task Category:Ruin Category:Minhiriath Category:Enedhwaith Category:Cardolan